An infant’s death is a time for love and understanding

International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day is Oct. 15. Archbishop J. Michael Miller will celebrate Mass in honour of children who have gone too soon at Gardens of Gethsemani cemetery in Surrey Oct. 15 at 7 p.m.

Five words changed our lives significantly on May 19, 2009.

“I can’t find baby’s heartbeat.”

This was our fifth baby and our midwife had come over early to beat morning traffic – early enough in my labour that had I gone to the hospital (especially for a fifth baby!) they’d have sent me back home to labour until things were really under way. 

We rushed to Lions Gate Hospital, where an obstetrician confirmed that our son had died.

It was a horribly sad thing to birth a baby only to say goodbye. I’m forever grateful to my midwives, whose loving care got me through the most difficult delivery of my life.

Telling our older children their baby brother George had died was devastating, and it was absolutely awful to leave the hospital with a memory box instead of a baby in my arms. 

Reeling from this terrible shock, I found myself trying to explain to people that our healthy son had died. 

“There must have been something wrong,” said one woman. 

When I tried to explain that no, there wasn’t some adverse diagnosis, she didn’t want to hear it. We opted not to have an autopsy because the doctors felt that George either died of cord compression or fetal-maternal haemorrhage. 

She was certain that our baby died because I had a midwife instead of a doctor, even though a doctor wouldn’t have seen me until my contractions were much closer together and it would have been the same outcome.

“It’s nature’s way of taking care of mistakes,” said another mother as we waited for our children to be dismissed from the Catholic elementary school just days after George’s death. I remember how much that hurt to hear and thinking it was a good thing that I was still sedated.

People don’t want to believe it but even today in developed countries, healthy babies die – sometimes inexplicably.

According to Statistics Canada, there are seven stillbirths out of every 1,000 births (this is slightly less than one of out five pregnancies ending in miscarriage before the 20th week of pregnancy). 

Worldwide, stillbirth is 10 times more common than Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) – yet ask expectant parents and they’ll have likely only heard about SIDS.

“Everything happens for a reason,” said another mother. I think it’s easier to believe that when you’re not on the unlucky side of the statistics. 

It felt like I had to defend our right to grieve. 

“It’s so awful, but it’s not like you lost one of the older children,” said another mother. “You didn’t really know this baby yet.”

“You’ll get over this,” another person said. I cried about that to another mother I knew who had lost a toddler to illness and she said, “No. You will never get over the death of your child, but you will get through it.” 

“God needed another angel,” and “He was too perfect for earth” were said so often that one of our boys started being naughty because he worried that God would take him away from us, too.

People were also quick to point out that we didn’t have to be sad because we could have another baby. That would be like telling a widow not to grieve because she can go find another husband or telling a child not to be sad her mother died because her father is still alive.

I still remember that the school newsletter shared information about a funeral for another family’s loved one but didn’t include information about our son’s funeral Mass. The secretary said that while our children had no choice but to go through this, other children didn’t need to know this happens. So it’s okay to ignore the life of an infant? If he’d lived a week would he have been included? A day?

I’ve lost grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, my stepmother Barb, and family pets. I’ve never had to defend my grief the way I had to when our infant son died. In some way, infant death is almost taboo. Or maybe people want to believe it’s so rare and unusual that they’d rather not know about it.

I think this is why recognizing infant loss on October 15th is meaningful to me. It’s an opportunity for those of us who have experienced the grief of stillbirth, miscarriage, or neonatal death to share our experiences. 

Today, one in four pregnancies end in loss – even pregnancies that have been prayed for and deliveries where parents have pleaded with God for miracles. 

When our son George died, we were living in North Vancouver and we were parishioners at St. Paul’s Church on the Squamish Nation. There were several women there who had lost babies and who surrounded us with love and understanding.

My grandmother had lost her baby Daniel to pneumonia when he was nine days old. She would call, and my father and stepmother Lynne reassured me that our baby George would always be part of our family. 

Our church, wonderful neighbours, and many families from the school rallied, organizing getting the older children to school while I was still in hospital and arranging meal drop-offs for weeks. 

While it felt like many people tried to explain away our grief, there were also many who abided with us. They listened and cried with us at George’s funeral. My sister Lisa grieved with us, remembered to take photos, and took over household duties during her visit.

Four elders carried a blanket and sang a hymn at the reception after George’s funeral and people donated enough to cover the funeral costs, which was a blessing because we had just bought our home in Abbotsford. The blanket was to remind us we were not alone in our grief and to catch our tears. 

A few weeks later we moved to Abbotsford and I lost this caring network of support. Here I was, a military brat who never had trouble making new friends, and I suddenly couldn’t figure out how to navigate our new normal. 

“I’m a post-partum mother with all of the hormones and none of the good things,” I wailed to my husband. I wished that we still wore mourning clothes when recently bereaved so that strangers understood.

Connecting with other grieving mothers online and in person helped me navigate those early, horrible days of sorrow. They gave me hope and made the journey less lonely. My husband was my rock, but men and women grieve very differently. I needed the company of my sisters in loss.

I met friends in Abbotsford who had also lost babies, friends who understood. I met Donna Crombie, whose article about the death of her son in January of 2009 ran in The B.C. Catholic on Mother’s Day just before George was born.

George would be 10 years old now. Grief doesn’t get easier with time, but it does change. It’s different and not so raw. Our other children talk about George and we all wonder what he’d be like now. 

On Oct. 15 we’ll light a candle in memory of George and all the other babies lost to stillbirth, miscarriage, and neonatal death. We’ll share and listen to stories of infant loss because we value life from conception to its natural end, even if that end is far too soon. 

If you’re grieving the death of a baby, we’re with you. You’re not alone.

What to do if someone you know loses a baby: 

• Say you’re sorry. Cards are nice because you can drop them off or mail them and they can be re-read in later weeks when the shock wears off and grieving really starts.
• Go to the funeral. It means a lot to the family to have the baby’s life celebrated. If the baby has siblings and your children are their friends, bring them to the funeral. It builds compassion and understanding, and children are amazingly perceptive.
• Offer practical help. Organize a meal train (there’s an app for that!), drop off baking or gift cards, arrange childcare or play dates for siblings, walk the dog, or mow the lawn. One fellow parishioner told us to change our outgoing voicemail to share that our son died and to provide her name and number to people who wanted to help. She knew we needed time as a family and organized help.
• Keep offering. Someone said, “Grief outlasts sympathy” and it can be all too true. While there can be a lot of help at first, grieving takes time. Do something kind a month or three months after loss. And then again at six months.
• Follow the lead of the bereaved. Everyone grieves differently. Some people want to talk and others want quiet. If the family requests no flowers, honour that. 
• Make a donation in memory of the child. Friends and family donated enough to have our son’s name inscribed on a star on the wall of the labour and delivery floor. Others donated to Tim Hortons camp charity and we got a wonderful letter months later.
• Remember the anniversary of the death. Do something kind in memory of the child and let the family know or send a little note to say “I remember your child with you” (and say the child’s name!).

What not to do if someone you know loses a baby:

• Don’t offer platitudes. A simple, “I’m sorry” is much better than saying everything happens for a reason or telling grief-stricken parents to be happy their much-wanted child is in heaven. 
• DO NOT tell grieving parents and siblings their baby is in limbo!!!! Do some research about holy innocents and baptism by desire and don’t say things to distress broken-hearted families.
• Don’t expect a conversation if you drop off food or a card. This is not a social call, it’s an act of kindness. It’s possible that the family might want to see visitors and talk for a bit, but they also might not be up for company. 
• Don’t rush grief. It takes time to grieve, even if we grieve with hope that we’ll see our loved ones again in eternity. Matthew 5:4 says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” and not, “Blessed are those who mourn for a few weeks and then get on with things.” 
• Don’t change the topic. If a bereaved family member talks about the baby’s death, they want to talk and hear the baby’s name. You can’t make someone feel more sad by talking about the baby when they want to, but avoiding the topic can be very hurtful. 
• Don’t expect grief to fit your expectations. Everyone grieves differently and many bereaved parents find it takes about two years to move through the stages of grief.
• Do not feel you have to know what to say. There is nothing anyone can say to make things better when a baby has died and you can simply say you’re sorry but you’re there to listen. The bereaved will remember who abided with them and who avoided them. It feels uncomfortable because it is so awful and that’s precisely why you need to rally.

Resources:

• Elizabeth Ministry https://rcav.org/elizabeth/
• Little Light of Heaven https://littlelightofheaven.com/
• Morning Light Ministry http://morninglightministry.org/
• Shrine of the Unborn https://shrineofholyinnocents.org/shrine-of-the-unborn
• Sands stillbirth and neonatal death charity https://www.sands.org.uk/
• After Miscarriage http://karenedmisten.blogspot.com/p/after-miscarriage-book.html